October 07, 2011

Ontarians should not be surprised at record low voter turnout in provincial election

Voting system, failure of Elections Ontario to inform voters of right to decline their ballot, too early fixed election date, and lack of key promises for more democratic elections and government, are likely reasons for decline

Friday, October 7, 2011

OTTAWA - Today, Democracy Watch called for democratic changes to Ontario's political system in response to the clear crisis of record low voter turnout in the provincial election. Initial results show that the Ontario Liberals have won 53 of 107 seats with the support of only 18.4% of eligible voters.

“With just under half of eligible voters casting ballots yesterday, the lowest in Ontario’s history, alarm bells should be going off and questions raised about the legitimacy of the provincial government,”said Tyler Sommers, Coordinator for Democracy Watch. "Voter turnout will go back up if the voting system is changed, if Elections Ontario does it job properly and informs Ontarians of their right to decline their ballot, if the fixed election date is pushed back to late October, and if the parties make promises to end undemocratic elections and government."

In addition to Elections Ontario properly educating voters about their right to decline the ballot (and disclosing declined ballot totals in election results), and making the fixed-election date later, the most important changes the Ontario parties can make to increase voter turnout are as follows:* pass an honesty-in-politics law that gives voters an easy, low-cost way to file complaints to the Integrity Commissioner, and gives the Commissioner the power to penalize misleaders (and requires MPPs who switch parties in-between elections to resign and run in a by-election);* change the voting system so that the percentage of MPPs each party receives more closely matches the popular vote percentages.

These two changes would give voters a reason to vote because they would know that voting for a specific party would mean a guaranteed result in terms of percentage of MPPs elected and promises kept.

In addition, if the parties strengthened provincial ethics, political finance, lobbying, open government, and whistleblower protection laws, voters would have more reason to vote because they would be more assured of good government no matter which party won.

"More and more voters know from their experience of the past few decades of elections that they are not going to get what they vote for, and are likely to get dishonest, secretive, unethical, unrepresentative and wasteful government no matter who they vote for, and as a result no one should be surprised to see voter turnout dropping lower and lower,” said Duff Conacher, Founding Director of Democracy Watch.

Dalton McGuinty’s mandate to govern Ontario has been dramatically curtailed by the grassroots opposition to his industrial wind strategy and anti-democratic Green Energy Act that has reduced his government to a minority.

Wind Concerns Ontario members campaigned against and defeated a number of rural Liberal MPPs including Minister of Agriculture Carol Mitchell (Huron Bruce); Minister of Environment (lead Ministry on the Green Energy Act) John Wilkinson (Perth-Wellington) and Minister of Education Leona Dombrowsky (Prince Edward Hastings).

Seventy-eight municipal councils that represent more than two and a half million Ontarians have called on the Government of Ontario to put in place a moratorium on all industrial wind development until an independent third party epidemiological health study can determine safe setbacks from industrial turbines and local democracy is restored to planning decisions.

“Wind Concerns Ontario members should be proud of our efforts tonight. The Ontario Liberals have spent the last two years denying science, refusing to accept local democracy and tonight they’ve paid a price,” said John Laforet, President of Wind Concerns Ontario. “The Liberals have an opportunity to change their course during this minority parliament, act on our concerns and put the interests of people ahead of the special interests behind the industrial wind lobby that cost them their majority tonight.”

With the Toronto Maple Leafs' season opener happening at the same time as the election votes are being tallied, some people are having a tough time deciding what to watch.

Montreal fan Anne Cako and Leaf fan Laura Radford were surprised the game would be on during the election.

"CBC is only covering the game," Radford said. "Hockey is dominating politcs."

"I think more people watch the hockey game than vote. At least, it seems that way," Cako said. "Only in Canada."

They said people are frustrated that the CBC is choosing to show hockey over the polls, but they admitted that they too will watch the game. "I've voted. I've done my part," Radford said, adding there was nothing left to do but wait.

Cako said they will be checking updates on their phone while the game is still on.

The hockey fans were having a small election of their own, counting how many people were cheering on which team. The count so far had the Habs with a slight lead.

They are: Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry, Toronto Centre, Trinity-Spadina and Kenora-Rainy River. Those polls will stay open until 9:30 because of interruptions in their operation earlier in the day, Alicia Fowlie, Election Ontario’s communications co-ordinator, told The National Post.

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